bookpost 2024
combining these because it isjFEBRUARY !!!!!! and also because i had less to say about perhaps the stars than i thought i would i need to get this fucking post off my plate or i'll die.
Finished:
perhaps the stars, by ada palmer
book 4 of 4, terra ignota
Finally finished with Ms Palmer's current oeuvre, until she gets her viking book out. This is the only book I read in October, in part because my copy was Eight Hundred And Thirty-Three Pages Long. It was... disappointing isn't exactly the right word. I liked my time with it. I could see glimpses of the vision. What I wanted from it was perhaps unreasonable (more yaoi). I had a good time, and I don't regret reading it. It's a book that I want to revisit in the future.
It feels more reserved than the previous 3 - it's a war chronicle where Mycroft is no longer the narrator - but it's also on a bigger scale, so maybe not? The chapter written entirely in faux-computer code is maybe representative of its scope. It Still Goes Places, but without Mycroft as anchor - with the new PoV character completely unnamed - they feel... untethered. And that's, I think, on purpose! It's a book about being deeply lost! It's all very bold and purposeful, and it has a lot of grandiose things to say, but it culminates in something that made me feel very, uh, unread, in ways the ridiculous drama of the previous 3 books let me overlook. I could grasp at the shape of it, but it delved more deeply into its influences (Ancient Greece, Sherlock, the French Enlightenment, etc,), of which I have very little basis in. I couldn't tell it was doing an extended specific bit until it turned to the camera and told me 'hey, this section was the Iliad'. I don't begrudge it its bibliography... it's clearly about stories, far moreso than - for example - Time War putting in references to pop culture for no reason. Wearing its influences so loudly on its sleeve is definitely limiting because there's really only so many books you can fit into another book... I think it's fine though... most of it is rooted in Mycroft's storytelling and he's severely cracked in the head, so it makes sense that it feels to a reader like this entire society is based on three books because he's recounting it while trying to fight off his Voltaire tulpa or whatever it is he has going on.
It was frustrating because where it went was legitimately very cool to me. I love its loose grasp on reality. I love The Themes and the Metaphors and the Impact of History upon the Future. They just weren't what I read the first 3 books for, so the jump was a little harsh for me. I'll come back after having a Homer and Arthur Conan Doyle moment I guess. Homework for Sara: Read Brave New World?
the traitor baru cormorant, by seth dickinson
lesbian revolutionary economics
Picked this up almost entirely because the author posts in the Something Awful book subforum and everyone there bigs him up about it, but it's gotten pretty rave reviews otherwise. Devoured it at rapid speed. It's entirely about taxes and fascism. It's occasionally a very harsh read - the homophobic empire's dehumanisation and constant threat of castration is, a little difficult - but while it's tragic and miserable and hurts I think it carefully avoids veering fully into to shock and exploitation. It's so tense with threat and allure. Also sorry for liking the guy in a story about #women but mfw Muire Lo. Wet little righthand men with unrequited feelings !!!
a wizard of earthsea, by ursula k. le guin
wizard school (woke)
Finally, my second Le Guin,
This was... not the book I expected it to be at all. I suppose if I'm thinking kids book about magic and an epic chosen one going to school and being the best in his class and doing an adventure and fighting dragons, I think about R*wling, and if not specifically her, then more generally something with a joke in it? Kids love to read a Tolkien and whatnot but my perception is that books for younger readers are more playful. This might be regional - while there were a few American and European authors in the mix, my childhood Shans, Colfers, Strouds, Pullmans, Pratchetts were all British Isles - or it might be that Earthsea is from 1968. I found it dry, quiet, contemplative. The straightforward writing style reminded me of the Irish myths I've also been reading. The considered worldbuilding with its Taoist influences combined with the linguistic brevity and plot about fucking about and finding out really do sell the weight of it all. All the fat is trimmed until you can only see the truth: here is Ged, and here are the consequences of his actions. I thought about it too hard while writing this and started crying. This also happened to me with The Left Hand of Darkness... 2 for 2...
the monster baru cormorant, by seth dickinson
lesbian crusader kings
Ok I am writing this a month late so bear with me. I really liked the cast in 1 but because Baru (series, character) is Evil there's not many that are appearing in book 2, so I was wary going in. I think the new cast took a little to set in but Apparitor and Iraji and Tau-indi in particular are fantastic additions. Whatever's going on with that Torrinde freak is engaging too. Yawa's progression also great. I apparently did not pay enough attention to Ormsment in 1. The ending... I like it, but it doesn't hit like 1's ending did. I think people seem disappointed with how it ends up, because Baru 1 is about Taxes and more generally detailed politics and social structures, and while it's all still there, Baru 2 has a greater proportion of action and escape and also - surprise - there is a magic cult in it now. It's a book that feels very much like a middle book. Had a great time and looking forward to getting around to 3.
idlewild, by james frankie thomas
gay? and transgender? on 9/11??
Fujoshi to transmasc pipeline literature of the highest order. Uneasy, destructive and occasionally terrifying in its incisiveness. Theo, no further comment. I do think it is probably important to note that the author transitioned into a massive fag who posts about his gym hookups on twitter. I have to cut all my hair off again
Unfinished:
titus groan, by mervyn peake
ye olde gothic bbc childrens serial???
Started in Dec but Baru 2 coming off of library hold took priority, about 130 pages (a quarter?) in at time of writing. Dense beyond belief. Back cover describes it as 'one of the most astonishing sustained flights of the imagination in modern English fiction', which is spot on. It's also described as dreamlike but I'm finding it completely opaque. It's so thick with description that it could cure aphantasics. Occasional moments of truly jaw-dropping prose, but it also makes it slow as hell. It's no slog, but it's going to take me some time to fully get through it. Also, because it's old British city fantasy, every character is either named like Mr Deaconthwaite Frumblebutt and Auntie Agneys Pumpernickel and they look like nursing home scarecrows, or they're just called, like, Belch. Fascinating. I'm looking forward to finishing it, and I hear the sequels get much worse!
moby-dick; or, the whale, by herman melville
please infodump at me some more about whaling
Including because I read like 30 pages instead of Han Kang's Human Acts, a library book that did not successfully transfer to my Kobo. It's been on the backlog there for ages, picked it up because at a party a friend read out this really fujo passage to us. Ishmael metaphorically grabbing the reader and talking directly into their face in a way where it sounds like he's romanticising the subject beyond a reasonable level and really working himself up about it is kind of the same reason I like Mycroft as a narrator? Need to read more books where I have to tell the narrator to calm tf down. It's back on the backburner because I have more library and physical books to get through but it was very promising.